“The Zone of Interest” is getting a lot of Oscar buzz this year with its tense portrayal of a family in Nazi Germany overseeing Auschwitz. But it’s also very dreary! As one of my heroes, The Joker, once said: “Why so serious?” Don’t you want your movie to be a four-quadrant hit that everyone can enjoy?
With that in mind, here are 5 jokes that should be added to “The Zone of Interest” to lighten the mood a little bit.
#5. “Hitler’s right behind me, isn’t he?”
One of the most confusing parts of “The Zone of Interest” is that we never know for sure if Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss endorses Hitler’s antisemitic views. Sure, he complains about Hitler here and there, but how can we know for sure we can root for him as the protagonist? Well one way to solve this problem AND inject a little humor into the story, would be for Rudolf to be ranting and raving about how crappy his boss Hitler is and then yep, you guessed it, Hitler’s standing right behind him the whole time! That would be hilarious.
#4. More pop culture references
What year does this movie take place? It’s literally impossible to know because we don’t get a single pop culture reference the entire time. There are some theories flying around that the movie takes place in the 1940s and a perfect way to show that would be with some pop culture references from that period. When Rudolf gifts his wife a beautiful fur coat someone gave(?) him, maybe she doesn’t like it, and she sarcastically says “thanks, Casablanca!” as a reference to the 1942 romantic film “Casablanca.”
#3. “More like AuschSHITZ!”
One of the cornerstones of hilarious comedies is a slacker who hates his job. Rudolf definitely appears stressed out at times, but we don’t ever get any insight into how he feels about his job of running the infamous concentration camp at Auschwitz. It would go a long way for his characterization, if just once, he said something like “Auschwitz? More like AuschSHITZ!” to prove that he thinks his job sucks. I’m not saying Rudolf should be exactly like Jim from “The Office” — but all art is basically copied from something else, and that would be a great place for the writers of this movie to start if they are making changes.
#2. 69
At the beginning of the movie, the screen turns red for an extended period of time while we hear intense white noise. This is a huge amount of wasted space. Was no one editing this thing? One very easy way to majorly punch this scene up is to have the number “69” fly onto the screen in a giant font. 69 is considered a hilarious number because it looks like if two people were giving oral sex to each other.
#1. “What’s that smell?”
It would be really funny if someone farted during the movie. Even just once.
